Teach Soap

Ok. I am jumping in on the cold process bandwagon. I have made several batches and every batch has been sort of soft after 2-3 days of sitting. I have not used palm oil in my batches. It is not readily available where I live (I would have to order it online.) I have been using what I could get from my local grocery store.

Ok. I made some soap using coconut oil, olive oil, canola oil, sunfower/safflower oil. (not in that order of quanity). They have been in the silicone square mold from brambleberry. At 3 days, they are still soft on the bottom to unmold. Can I put them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes at maybe 170 degrees to help harden them enough to get out with messing up the soaps? Or should I just skip using the silicone square mold altogether? Or on the other spectrum, is my combination of oils/fats not causing the soap to become hard enough to remove from the mold?

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,

Jennyflower

Palm oil is important for a nice hard bar. Try looking at target for "organic vegetable shortening" brand Spectrum. Most targets have this and it's simply palm oil. Make sure to stir it up good before every use.

Also, I have the Same BB mold as you and have had issues with the soap not gelling. If it gels it'll pop right out. If not, try throwing it in the freezer for an hour then pop it out. If you want it to gel without wrapping it in towel or other method, try mixing lye and oils at higher temp . I usually mix around 130 degrees and it always gells.

Good luck!

Thank you for the idea! I hadn't thought of that.

No, I don't think that they gelled at all. I mixed it at about 135 degrees. But I was doing more than one scent/coloration and it was cooler than 135 when I poured it into the molds.

I will have to look for the palm oil at target. I just get what I can at our local wally world (I live in a small small town).

Sounds like your soap did not gel. Also, unless you get the hydrogenized palm, you need to melt all of your palm, stir it well to make sure that you get all the stearic that's in there completely incorporated. If you did not melt and stir the palm before use, the stearines can settle to the bottom. The top portion will give you a soft soap. By the time you get to the bottom of the container it has a lot of stearic which can make your soap hard, but at a larger % can make your soap seize.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I did end up putting the soap in the freezer and it was still not unmold easily. I just pushed them out as well as I could and let them dry. They work, but they are just a bit odd looking.

You can make a hard bar without palm. Do a 70/30 olive /coconut oil mix with a 5-8% superfat. Before adding your lye to water, add salt to the lye water, about 20% of the water weight. Stir until the salt is dissolved. Then add the lye. The water will turn a milky color. Use that lye solution, and individual molds--the bars will set up fast and be ready to unfold the next day.

You don't need the salt--the olive will set up, too, but it will take longer unless you discount your water a bit.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

At first, the at bb and I've sorta learned how to use the soapcalc. I use the lye calculator at bb for pretty much everything so far. The soapcac I used for the 100% coconut idea I asked about here.

I find depending on the recipe, the silicone molds need to sit for a week sometimes or more till I unmold. If my recipe is high in soft oils, it seems to take forever but if I up the coconut oil, a few days is all it takes. I have also found that gelling makes all the difference in the world with silicone molds.

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Haven

So far I have figured out that since adding palm to my recipes the soaps unmold a bit easier from the silicone molds. I made soap two days ago and they were able to come out of the 9 sq cube silicone mold from bb. Yeah!

Thanks for all your help everyone!

Another little tip for silicone loaf molds is to rub a little bit of mineral oil on the sides, bottom and corners. You can also add a bit of sodium lactate to the lye water to make the loaf a bit harder and easier to unmold.

I will have to give Mellifera's technique with the salt a try, I currently have some individual soaps I made yesterday that didn't gel, I've already ruined the sides of 2 looking to see if they separate from the molds easily. I just can't leave it alone.

I hear ya not being able to leave the soap alone. So I've started to make the soap the night before I go to work. (I work swing shift--1430-2300.) This has helped me. I leave them alone until my next day off, which is usually 2 days later. So they just sit there on my freezer looking at me waiting for me to let them out and cut them.

I let my silicon molds sit for a day or two, then into the freezer for a couple hours. They just pop right out, then I let them finish curing and all is well.